If You Fall – HOME, Manchester

So, what happens when you lose your independence, your voice, your mind – the essence of what makes you, you?

This question is answered by Ad Infinitum, a multi award winning Bristol based theatre company directed by Helena Middleton, currently settling into a run at HOME as part of a UK tour. This is a collaborative piece of devised theatre which tells the stories of Margaret and Norson. A story about care, love and the end of our lives. Using personal testimony, the company ensemble has created an imaginative, real and compassionate piece of physical theatre.

We first meet Margaret at her funeral objecting that her Eulogy appears to be focused on the end of her life rather than the sum of it. She does not want to be remembered as in a care home with vascular dementia but that she was a Local Councilor, made a mean Shepherd’s Pie and once walked from John O Groats to Lands End. A fall at home caused by slipping on a book she left on the stairs on her way to Book Club, breaks her pelvis and leaves the 72-year-old lying for 5 hours before getting help. She has bleeds on her brain. Her decline is horribly slow.

Norson loves to cook and watch cricket. He loves spice, music, a good stock and his son Connor. When Connor’s suspicions that something is wrong are confirmed by Norson’s best friend his decline is horribly quick. He is 56

None of it is good. For anyone. The children trying to do their very best for their parent, the carers in nursing homes, the patients who refuse help, the burden, the confusion, the indignity, the cruelty, the whole bloody lot.

For a theatre company to tackle this content with such kindness, poignancy and honesty is an achievement in itself, to do it with such skill, imagination and style is impressive. I love physical theatre and the movement direction of this piece was slick, the acapella narratives and musical elements worked superbly, and key moments were directed with maturity and truth.

Katie Sykes’ Set and Costume design cleverly expressed the walls closing in and director Helena Middleton integrated design into the action in a choreographic way to great effect.

One of things I love about devised work like this is that the cast are invested heavily and here it shows. The multi-generational, multi-ethnic cast are sharp, committed and nuanced. With great energy and pace, they moved as one, sang as one and owned their work. Heather Williams and Kirris Riviere as Margaret and Norson led with strength, Jabari Ngozi touched my heart as Connor Norson’s son and Elizabeth Gunawan, Clive Duncan and Robin Paley Yorke, as Margarets 3 children, then broke it.

This is a powerful and moving 70-minute piece of theatre that runs until Saturday 13^th May.

There will be two performances with integrated BSL and captions on Saturday 6th May (matinee) and evening of Wednesday 10th May. https://homemcr.org/production/if-you-fall/

Reviewer: Lou Kershaw

Reviewed: 4th May 2023

North West End UK Rating: ★★★★